Chapter 2

The rain had not let up when Essie and Halley walked out of the clinic. They paused under the awning, both reluctant to go out in the darkness and rain even though the car was only a few feet away. Essie was still feeling the warmth and the strength of his arms around her. Halley had hugged Doctor Prescott.

No, it’s Press. So why did I hug him too as we were leaving? It just seemed like the thing to do. Admit it, it did feel good.

“ ... and, he’s really a nice guy...”

“Huh?

Halley stared at her friend. “Hello, Earth to Essie. I was just going on about Press and you were in La La Land. Apparently, you agree.” She chuckled. “Essie, I think you’re quite taken by our Doctor Prescott.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!” Halley laughed.

It was Essie’s turn to laugh. “And who uses terms like ‘quite taken,’ anyway?”

“Okay, how about, you’re crushing on my friend, Press?”

Essie rolled her eyes and made a dash for the SUV.

Once inside the car Essie turned to her friend. “So, ‘best friend,’ in the, what? three plus months you’ve been dating Lucas, and gushing about him to me including practically a photo a day of the two of you, how come you’ve never mentioned Press?”

She could see the hesitation.

“Well?”

“There’s this doctor at the hospital, Mariel Jones...”

Halley laughed. “Now I know you’re crushing on Press. If you could have seen your face when I mentioned another woman!”

Essie tried to keep her tone neutral. “A guy like Press is probably very popular.”

Halley laughed again. “If you give me a chance, I’ll try to answer your original question.”

“I thought you already did,” she huffed.

“Mariel is a friend of mine and Lucas and Press.”

“Okay?”

“We hang out, but what’s now clear is that she and Press are good friends and that’s as far as it goes. They get along so well, I couldn’t be sure for a while, but seriously they’re more like brother and sister. Until I was sure, no sense in even mentioning the guy.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. She grew up in San Diego, a Navy brat, the daughter of a master chief, and her mother was from somewhere in the Caribbean. She, like Press, was a corpsman with the Navy in some of the same crappy places, so they share some significant life experiences, plus she’s just fun to be around.”

“And they really are just friends?”

“Yes. So, now that I’ve explained, you are free to crush on Press all you want.”

“Oh thank you, all-wise friend and purveyor of advice to the lovelorn.”

Halley stuck out her tongue. They laughed.

As they sat in the car in the rainy darkness, Essie looked at her friend. “You’re going to have to give me directions. I’ve not been here since you moved into your new apartment.”

“Oh right. All uphill roads lead to Ladera. Just go straight through the never-ending construction zones, and when you get to the top, just bear to the left which will take you around back to the entrance to the parking garage.”

They were quiet for a bit – the only sound the wipers. Then, as Halley examined the leather-covered interior, she said, “Nice ride. This looks like a newer version of the one you were in when you were here in September. I’m surprised Felicity let you borrow it.”

“Considering how many she has in her collection, she’ll hardly miss it; but actually it’s my new semi-permanent loner that gets me around on my visits to California.”

Halley nodded. “Nice perk, although knowing you, you probably asked for an F-150.”

“She was fresh out,” Essie deadpanned.

Halley chuckled. “Anyway, Felicity even donated two cars to the Drivers Ed program. Of course, each car had ‘Courtesy of Cowgirls Inc.’ painted on the doors! Just how many does she have now?”

“I’ve lost count, although her collection probably takes up most of one floor of the parking garage at the building Cowgirls now owns in Sacramento. She always good naturedly cautions me to not scratch it, and knowing I was heading to Magdalena she was very firm about not letting you drive!”

Halley put her hand to her forehead. “I’m hurt. Why would she say such a thing?”

Essie tried unsuccessfully not to laugh. “Maybe, because Senior Trooper Canady calls you crash!”

“A couple of not-my-fault fender-benders and he casts aspersions...”

“And a few speeding tickets between here and Lodi.”

“Harrumph, I say. Harrumph. Just because Rashmi is an old married lady now, and apparently drives like one, those troopers need a new target!” She mock pouted.

Halley changed the subject. “Sorry for being late after I sent you that text. One of my senior girls had a meltdown.” She smiled slightly. “And I had to talk her off the ledge.”

“Oh?”

“You know her – Valentina, one of your star riding pupils.”

Worried, Essie asked, “Is she okay?”

“She’s been accepted at half a dozen colleges but got wait-listed on one of her top choices. Teen angst. Ain’t adolescence wonderful?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” was Essie’s tongue in cheek reply.

Halley laughed.

They were quiet again as they made their way through the rainy darkness. Soon, they arrived at the top of the hill. Her headlights revealed what looked like the fronts of several two-story apartments that were joined together but were set into the side of the hill. “Which one is yours?”

“Keep following the road to the left around to the back – there’s an underground parking garage.”

Of all the clinics in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine.

Movie buff, Doctor Julian ‘Press’ Prescott stood looking out the large front window as he channeled Rick Blaine sitting in the dark in Rick’s Café Américain. He was feeling pleasantly unsettled as he watched the taillights of the silver Lexus recede into the dark and rain.

He had to chuckle. ‘Clinic’ doesn’t have quite the ring as ‘gin-joints,’ and meeting Essie for the first time, is not quite the same as seeing your long-lost love appear after she was a no show for the last train to Marseilles on that rainy day when the Germans marched into Paris.

But Essie Sinclair has the same kind of luminous alure that Ingrid Bergman had, as Ilsa in Casablanca. I wonder if my expression was as telling as Bogart’s? Essie hugged me – I hugged her, and from that brief encounter I was overwhelmed by the scent and feel of her – her perfume, the smell of the leather of her jacket, and just a hint of her shampoo as my face touched her hair. Damn! What’s wrong with me?

Essie Sinclair, rocket scientist, popular singer, friend to Halley. I’ve just met her, but next to me she seems so young. I hope this old man’s reaction wasn’t too obvious when she said she was twenty-four. So, why am I feeling unsettled, other than the fact she’s smart, beautiful and a rescuer of a couple of girls in trouble ... and I’m attracted?

Let’s see – When filming Casablanca, Bogy was forty-four and Bergman was twenty-seven, so my thirty-one to her twenty-four. Seven years? I’m not quite a cradle robber. He grimaced ruefully.

Why are you even thinking about her in these terms? She probably has guys chasing her. What if she has someone already?

Stop! You’ll make yourself crazy.

He shook his head and turned to find Nurse Isabela watching him with an enigmatic expression. She had her raincoat on over her scrubs, yellow umbrella in hand, and appeared to be on her way out. He wasn’t surprised she was still at the clinic past the end of her shift. With the addition of the two new arrivals, they had five patients in residence this night.

Isabela approached the door. Just before she opened it, she turned, and with just a ghost of a smile, said, “Doctor Prescott, Miss Essie is a lovely person, and very important to us here at the school.”

With that, she departed.

What was that about? Advice to the lovelorn? A warning? Was my attraction so obvious? Does that also mean there isn’t someone special already?

He paused in the breakroom to refill his coffee – now decaf – and to get a cup of hot chocolate for Brie. Suddenly he was struck with the vision of showing up for Christmas dinner at his parent’s ranch with Essie in tow.

He chuckled as he thought about the shocked looks from his mother and two sisters. His sisters, Piper and Andrea, were older, already married and had children. They lived on the ranch in their own homes just a stones-throw from what was called the ‘Main House.’ But then his thoughts turned serious.

Mom loves the fact that her daughters and sons-in-law and grandchildren live right next door and they run the ranch together. She, and they, want me to forgive and forget and marry Lizette, adopt her daughters and live on the ranch too. That’s certainly what Lizette wants – she’s made no secret of that – and on Christmas morning, as is her tradition for the last several years, she and her girls will drop by with gifts for the family. Of course, Mom will have gifts ready for them. Then later in the day, they will reappear for the Prescott family Christmas dinner.

As usual, I’ll be the dutiful son and keep smiling while I try my best to ignore the fuss my mother is making over Lizette and her girls and the not-so-subtle hints that I need to do the right thing and marry Lizette and adopt her girls.

Right thing? I do like her girls, but I’m not the unknown sperm donor and now that I’m working with Lizette almost every day, I’m feeling very fortunate I dodged the bullet with her a dozen years ago. Despite my explanations and protestations my mother turns a deaf ear. In other words, this Christmas, same old, same old.

He shook his head as a vision of himself appeared. He saw himself as he drove up the long drive. It was summer, nine years ago and he was a scrawny twenty-two-year-old just discharged from the Navy, having just returned from his latest assignment with the Marines in Afghanistan.

And how did that work out for you? My mother and sisters still treated me like a kid and oh by the way we’ve invited Lizette and her girls to dinner ... every night! It was a near thing that I lasted the planned week at home, and that was primarily because of my dad and brother-in-law Denny, Piper’s husband. They joined me every day, riding the fences – at least that was the excuse – that kept me out of the house and away from Mom and her plotting. Before Mom and my sisters and Lizette could get me to the altar, I jumped into my new truck and headed for Austin and the University of Texas, vowing never to return.

Maybe I should have listened to my younger self, but family is family and my dad and brothers-in-law are great too. At least for the four years at UT I had an excuse to stay away, but once I started medical school at UC San Francisco, I was only 180 miles away so avoiding Christmas at home was never an option.

Maybe I should invite Essie ... To borrow a British idiom, that would certainly put the cat among the pigeons, or as John McClane would say, in one of my favorite ‘Christmas’ movies, as he disrupted the plans of the nefarious Hans Gruber, ‘I’m just a fly in the ointment, Hans. The monkey in the wrench.’

“This place is really amazing.”

Halley and Essie were sipping wine and snacking on a tray of fruits, crackers, and cheeses that Halley put together in lieu of a bigger dinner. A platter of tempting home-baked Christmas cookies, compliments of Halley’s mother and UPS rested on the kitchen counter nearby. They were ensconced on a very comfortable sofa in front of the gas fireplace in Halley’s apartment, which was part of a new development called Ladera, Spanish for Hillside. It was on the school grounds, burrowed into the curves of the Lassen Foothills, looking west over the Valley.

Halley grinned. “Just part of the compensation package.”

Essie laughed. “Stop already!”

Finally, Essie asked what had been on her mind since she started planning this trip. “Halley ... just before I came for your graduation, you announced that you’d taken this position at Magdalena. I was surprised to say the least. I know you had lots of engineering job offers from industry ... any second thoughts a year and a half later?”

She hastened to add, “Not that I’m questioning your decision, I’m just curious.”

Halley pondered the question. “I love this place. I’ve loved it since I first saw it. Something about, you can take the girl out of the ranch, but you can’t take the ranch out of the girl.”

Essie dutifully chuckled.

“When Headmistress Raniger called and offered the math and science teaching position, I never hesitated.” She paused. “In the months since I started, I’ve never regretted that decision. These days I even have a pretty good handle on Spanish.” She grinned. “Much to the dismay of those girls who talk in class, or make comments about ‘la profesora pelirroja.’”

“The redheaded teacher?” Essie laughed dutifully. I’m glad you’re happy here. And, of course there’s your two boyfriends ... Sorry, only one now.” Essie teased.

Halley smiled. ‘Lucas was and is, an unexpected bonus. It wasn’t long after Press arrived six months ago that he convinced Lucas he should leave San Francisco. He can write his novels from anywhere and why not Red Bluff? He says he’s a whole lot more productive ‘out here in the boonies,’ and it’s a whole lot cheaper, quieter, and the people are friendly. He’s turned into quite the country boy and, I can proudly say, become a passable rider. As an added bonus, he met me!” She laughed.

She turned serious. “I guess I should ask you the same, about your job. So far, from your visits and our conversations, you seem to be getting along pretty well down there in Nerdville, Texas. Although your serious lack of a social life is kinda disturbing. What’s the ratio of men to women in that place anyway? Ten to one?”

Essie laughed. “Nerdville? That’s good and probably accurate. Spacebase, Boca Chica grows every day. Engineers like me are a dime a dozen, but, you’re right, mostly guys.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

Essie smiled and shook her head. “They’re engineering nerds. I swear many of them have never had a social conversation with a female, other than, maybe their mother!”

Halley looked at her friend. “Yeah, and I can see where someone that looks like you and fronts a popular band might be a tad intimidating.”

Essie laughed. “I don’t think anyone I work with even knows about me and La Banda. I’ve certainly never mentioned it.”

“Oh? Well, where do they think you go a weekend or two every month?”

“I don’t think anyone notices. We work a lot of hours and when we’re off, many of us tend to hole up in our apartments which are mostly in Brownsville, thirty miles away. There’s not really much to do there, although that’s changing since there’s now over sixteen hundred well-paid employees looking for something to do.”

She smiled. “And, it’s not like I haven’t been asked to ‘hang out,’ but I’m certainly not interested in spending my down time playing video or computer games, or God forbid, talking about work, with a bunch of geeks while eating pizza and drinking beer!”

“So, it’s pretty much work your four ten-hour shifts and then once a month or more often, you catch the Aero Services Austin Tesla-SpaceX shuttle to Hayward?”

“These days, more like four twelves, or thirteens, or fourteens...” Essie grew thoughtful. “But lots of challenges and brilliant people. And the Fridays that I’m not off to Hayward and then on to Sacramento or some concert venue, likely as not, I’ll work that day too, and some Saturdays.”

“Oh. So, not a lot of work-life balance, and no time to make friends in Brownsville who are not part of Space X?”

Essie nodded. “True, but the experience is invaluable and it’s not forever.”

“Some weeks it just seems like it,” came Halley’s rejoinder.

Essie nodded and smiled at her friend.

“I think you told me the flight from Brownsville to Hayward was four to five hours? That doesn’t seem too bad, considering, but then you have to drive the 100 miles on I-80 to Felicity’s place in Sacramento.”

“With the Friday traffic coming out of the Bay area, that’s the hardest part of the trip, and in early October they added a stop at the SpaceX launch facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in central California to unload people and cargo. Then they go on to the Tesla plant in Hayward. These days, the stop at Vandenberg is the main reason for the trip anyway. The Air Force is pretty security conscious at Vandenberg, so our plane never shuts down – we must be in and out of there in under thirty minutes. Then it’s up the coast the 260 miles to Hayward.”

She paused. “In good weather the flight time is probably six hours. We usually get in about one, Pacific time. Then I get off along with anyone else who has business at the Tesla plant there, along with whatever parts, or materials or sensitive electronics that get crammed into the plane, that didn’t get offloaded at Vandenberg.”

Halley grimaced. “Right, and then two plus hours of traffic to Sacramento.”

“Thankfully I have a car there. I get to park Felicity’s SUV at the Aero Services Austin hangar at Hayward Executive Airport while I’m at ‘Nerdville.’ The plane stays there until Sunday noon, when it does the route in reverse.”

“Whew. Makes me tired just thinking about it.”

Essie laughed. “Yes, it does make for a long Friday. You probably remember after I got hired down there, I tried commercial first but it was unworkable, unless I wanted to get into Sacramento at midnight or not at all! Seriously, between having to fly from Brownsville to Austin or San Antonio and then there are no non-stops to Sacramento, to say nothing of the TSA hassles, cancelled flights, surly passengers...”

Halley smiled. “Now it’s just you upfront playing copilot with the handsome Aero Services Austin pilot.”

Essie chuckled. “Her name is Antonia. She is pretty though, and if I was inclined in that direction, I’d go for a girl just like her.”

Halley let out a chuckle.

“Never mind. And then you do it all in reverse on Sunday? That’s a lot of flying for a weekend. And all-day Saturday you’re in a studio recording or rehearsing with La Banda.”

Essie nodded. “I wish I had the time to come here to visit more often, or even get to Lodi, which is closer, to visit Jessica, Harrison, Jenny, and little Jacob. And I really miss this place, and all the friends I’ve made here, especially you. But for now, that’s my schedule. And, several weekends during the spring and summer, when I get to Sacramento, I drive to the executive airport where I join the rest of La Banda and board the Aero Services Austin plane to Reno, or Vegas, Pendleton, Wenatchee for a show at The Gorge, Coachella, or some other venue where we’re going to perform.”

“No wonder I haven’t seen much of you since graduation!”

Essie looked at her friend and said with genuine sorrow, “I’m sorry about that ... You’d think those weekends when I’m only 130 miles down the freeway in Sacramento, I could get away more. I feel like I’m neglecting my best friend.”

Halley reached across and touched her friend’s hand. “Essie, you’re not. We still talk or text almost every day and with your schedule it’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

She sighed. “I know, but I really would like to see you more.” She paused. “It’s too bad you don’t have the same deal with Aero Services Austin.”

“The deal your friend Case Reynolds set up? You get to fly, and park at their hangar, because you’re a ‘special consultant to Aero Services Austin,’ and therefore an employee not a passenger.”

“She nodded. “There’s no other way I could do it – the travel I mean.”

“Pretty nice of him. By the way, how is the wonderful, handsome Mr. Reynolds anyway?”

Case is unobtainable, but he still makes my heart flutter when he smiles, and on those few occasions when he sings with La Banda...

Halley looked at her friend over the rim of her glass. “‘Press’ and ‘Essie.’ That was quick.”

“Huh? It was his suggestion. He said since we were sitting around talking, calling him ‘Doctor Prescott’ seemed weird, and since he was already calling me Essie, I should just call him ‘Press,’ like everyone else. That got my curiosity going and I asked about it. He just shook his head but I was, shall we say, persistent.” She smiled.

“So, he actually admitted his first name is Julian?”